MouseHunt
'' MouseHunt'' was developed by HitGrab, Inc. under the direction of Bryan Freeman and Joel Augé, and was released to a select group of participants for beta testing in early 2007. On 7 March 2008, MouseHunt was officially released to the general public. Just nine months later, MouseHunt earned its creators a $250,000 development grant from Facebook.[1] In 2011, it was shortlisted as a Top Game with a user base of 50,000 to 100,000 users.[2] It was one of the first games on Facebook to introduce a tradeable Digital good (SuperBrie+). MouseHunt released Mobile Apps for both the iOS on 17 October 2012 [3] and then Android first for Jelly Bean (v4.1) on 7 December 2012 [4] and for Gingerbread and above on 13 February 2013 [5] Background Story The game of MouseHunt is set in the fantasy kingdom of Gnawnia. The player is a hunter, commissioned by the King of Gnawnia to catch mice that infest the kingdom by using virtual traps, bases and cheese. Additional Story is available by catching mice who drop Torn Pages. These describe the first ever mousehunter and some of the observations made. Gameplay MouseHunt is a passive game, intended to be played while surfing the Web. The player, called a hunter, arms a trap (using cheese as bait) and can then sound the "Hunter's Horn" once every 15 minutes. If a player is playing the game for the first time, there is a special mission and the player can sound the "Hunter's Horn" once every 30 seconds. Every time the hunter's horn is sounded, they are taken on a hunt and have a possibility of catching a mouse. For each mouse the player catches, they get a unique reward, which is a certain number of points and gold, dependent on the breed of mouse captured. Automatic "Trap Checks" conducted every hour allow for a total of five opportunities to catch mice every hour. To ease out server load, Trap checks for different users are timed at either the XX:00, XX:15, XX:30 or XX:45 during the hour. However, one has to log in to sound the Hunter's Horn at least once per 24 hours for the automatic 'Trap Checks' to continue. For most areas that were released later on in the game (typically those released after 2011), most have a special Heads-Up-Display (HUD) below the normal HUD which guides the hunter along the specific mission for that area, or to help the hunter along with the special game mechanics for the area. Some areas have special game mechanics, like time-limited areas, or limited hunt areas, where hunters can only hunt in there for a specific amount of time or specific number of hunts before getting 'thrown out' to another area. Some areas also have game mechanics that can change the mice that can be caught in that area. However, these special mechanics still allow the game to be largely passive in nature, requiring just that little bit more work than just sounding the horn.